No, I'm still not going to use it.

[deird_lj]

I think I've decided that, when it comes to companies on the internet doing things:

1) they will inevitably screw up horrifically and make the world hate them (at least briefly).

2) their level of awesomeness should be decided not by whether they screw up (since that's inevitable) but by how they react to the world suddenly hating them.


Amazon generally doesn't react well. They tend to either come up with frantic excuses, or ignore the problem and hope it will go away.

Live Journal backpedals. Delicious sends you support emails instructing you in ways you can fix it yourself. Facebook ignores it. AO3 fixes it instantly, and sends you a reply telling you all about it and apologising profusely.


And Google? Screwed up this week. Many people on the internets are extremely annoyed about Buzz.

But... they reacted pretty well, really. Not brilliantly - but a very angry post has already been downgraded from a "Fuck You Google" to "Screw You Google", based on Google's response to her complaints.

So I think Google can still be considered reasonably awesome, all things considered.

Comments

[deird1]

Or even more obviously, there should be a "turn on Buzz - here's what'll happen" button before the damn thing even shows up.

Definitely. These things should be opt-in, not opt-out.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

I honestly can't understand why that's so difficult for companies to understand: that people don't want their personal stuff made public without even being asked. That most people don't consider that a service.

(I mean, we know it's all out there somewhere anyway and we all have individual files at Google HQ, but Christ, they could at least pretend.)